Why the voting system is broken... And how to fix it
NeohBel-PGO
Posts: 52 ✭✭
While reading this forum, I see a lot of frustrations about rejected POIs. Sometimes I understand the reasons for rejection but the annoying part is the rejection reasons seem to be totally wrong.
Just tot give you an example: a dancing studio and b&b in my neighbourhood was rejected three times already for various reasons: private property, not meeting acceptance criteria, being a K-12 school, temporary display,... Obviously wrong reasons which to me only show that a lot of reviewers just don't take the time to review or research things.
Niantic's policy is to just resubmit the nomination. Losing an upgrade some of us spend a lot of time in earning. Losing a lot of time waiting for it to pass the queue again. All pretty troublesome and not at all motivational for people who really mean well for the community.
This system not only is unfair to the submitting party, but also to other reviewers: is someone wrongfully rejects a submission you approved, they actually get rewarded for it with an extra agreement while your rating would go down. In short: the system rewards reviewers for not doing their job.
Solving this problem should start with punishing the bot-like reviewers instead of rewarding them. Reviewing correctly needs time. Sometimes I even need 2 minutes on Google to verify what someone is claiming. This is behaviour we should endorse.
Rejection reasons should be reviewed too by other (great?) wayfarers imho. Wrongfully rejected POIs should be identified and meaningful action should be taken on the rating of whoever is fast-earning instead of reviewing.
Identifying poor reviewers also is key: why are there no 'dummy' nominations by Niantic as hidden test in the reviewing line?
The odd thing is: according to me adding these things to the queue would actually shorten the queue since more actually good nominations would pass on the first try instead of filling the queue multiple times in a row...
@Niantic: please respond.
Comments
There are "dummy" things to review. They're known as honeypots and I understand that getting them wrong can tank your rating pretty quickly.
BTW, I occasionally spend 15+ minutes on a single review. It's pretty rare, but I've come across a couple of things that would be excellent wayspots but the submitter didn't provide enough information to confirm authenticity. The one that stands out in my mind is one of the most amazing urban murals I've ever seen (and I live in a city of world-class murals), but it wasn't visible on street view and the submitter thought that just turning around and taking a picture of a parking lot was an excellent supporting photo. It was something that I maybe could have caught a distant glimpse of with street view if I could find the right angle to peer between buildings... I spent a lot of time trying.
While I generally agree with the overall ideas behind your post, just wondering how often it takes you 2 minutes to review on google? Unless the poi is hidden by trees or something, I rarely find I need that much time on google.
Yeah the System is really broken and Stupid. A "Knotenpunkt" got declined as duplicate because another one is just a few meters away. Bad because the area Picture shows everything is fine and second you can clearly see, that both Knotenpunkte have different Numbers on it and are not the same 🙄 Just a few Second to look at photos is already to much for those People
I've had perfectly good nominations regularly rejected because the reviewers didn't think the photo was lined up just perfect. The POI is visible and even Niantic has stated pictures taken from a distance are not considered a valid reason for rejection. Low quality photo is a reason for photos where the picture is indecipherable, completely black, or upside down. Not taken from a distance.
I suggest of sending all nominations to @Hosette-ING for final review. All in in favor say Aye! 😉
I would be not excited to have a 2 minute wait time to review someones bedroom, plain bench, or another dog poop station....
Just tot give you an example: a dancing studio and b&b in my neighbourhood was rejected three times already for various reasons: private property, not meeting acceptance criteria, being a K-12 school, temporary display,... Obviously wrong reasons which to me only show that a lot of reviewers just don't take the time to review or research things.
You've provided very little info here but to be honest, 3 of the 4 reasons here make sense.
Quite often the owner/operator of a B&B lives on site, this could easily be considered PRP. The last B&B I reviewed I could find no indication that it actually was such, no results on google or google maps for the name and the nominator made little effort in their description and supporting text. Based on what I can see, it just looked like a big house in the country so this is exactly the rejection reason I provided.
As for a dance studio, many operate exclusively for school aged children and Niantic has not been very clear in the past about which facilities for children are actually allowed. Schools are out, certain scouting facilities are out, but playgrounds are ok. Not only that but there's been clarification in the past (though likely now out of date) that dance studios and martial arts gyms don't meet criteria.
More broadly I will say that complaint posts such as yours are common, and certainly all of us have had bad rejections. But by and large, it's a lot more explainable than you might think and simply complaining about reviewers just doesn't cut it. Yes reviewers should spend some time, but nominators must provide sufficient threads as a starting point for that research and so often they do not.
"Quite often the owner/operator of a B&B lives on site, this could easily be considered PRP."
If you start a B&B and decides to live on it, it does not make it a single family private house, as anyone can go there and get a room. Someone recently complained (and posted it requesting investigation) about a submition of a small restaurant in Japan saying that it was a house that was transformed into a restaurant, that the owner problably lived there and thus it was PrP. It doesn't make any sense, the place was clearly decorated as a restaurant, had its name, the menu and even some featured dishes on panels on the walls.
If it's well identified in the outside as business place (with a proper name, for instance), PrP should not apply. It's completly different if you have someone renting an extra room in his house in airbnb or something similar (it would still be a single family house hosting someone).
It's very hard to argue that dance studios and martial arts gyms are not good places to exercise (and even to socialize), so it must be out of date, indeed. Most dance studios here are for adults anyway.
I agree with all other points, though. It's specially hard when there's no street view and the area and the supporting picture is useless (and it often is).
I also think that the fact you don't get any feedback about your reviews (apart from maybe the rating dropping) is sad, because it does not help the reviewers to improve. The terrible mail that submitters get (often with reasons that are very hard to justify or simply random) doesn't help them either.
on the other hand, people still are learning alot.
If Niantic hadnt implementet the Watermark Option, people would still take photos with their cheesy huawei phones and submit photos with watermarks, unknowing that the camera itself has a toggle on/off.
The amount of photos with Watermarks has drastically reduced here in germany.
but, on the other hand, theres too much wayfarers that go too deep into the submission and come up with ideas. Theres a thin line between the work of a good wayfarer and the work of a mad hatter.
This, especially part about being mad hatter. I stumpled upon group discussing about how to go about wayspots in my country.
There was this very good wayspot submission on very rural area with maybe with 1 or 2 pokestops. Locals had build up decorated bat sign that was screwed on telephone pole, promoting and showing local real bat nesting place and it was made so it was safe for public to reach. If I recall right, there was an actual website showing the location as well.
I followed line of discussion where it was going and then one of the reviewers pulled up some county law from 1960' stating that you can't legally put / mount things on telephone pole. Then this said reviewer pulled multiple people along for same line of thinking. Submission ended up dismissed.
We could go on from here and discuss about whats's being reasonable, or what Wayfarer rules say about persuasion / influencing others on passing wayspot nominations, but I'll leave that rabbit hole undiscussed. At least for now.
As you wish: here is the additional info I provided.
Studio for learning various ballroom dances and more modern dancing styles. Dancing parties allow dancers to practice more twice a month while meeting a lot of people (at the bar). Owner was a juror in "Dancing with the stars". The bed and breakfast welcomes a lot of tourists visiting Antwerp. (See http://dansstudio123.be/)
Rejection because of temporary display?? (First line on the site says they are celebrating their ten year anniversary this year.)
Private residence?? How can a (public) B&B with multiple rooms be a single family home?
Doesn't meet eligibility criteria?? It actually meets all 3: great starting point for tourists visiting Antwerp, the dancing studio makes you exercise and it's a great place to meet people.
Come on. Be serious.